Tag Archives: poem about what happens to old wedding dresses

She mourns the loss of everything as the crescent moonfades away to nothing this putrescent June.Orange blossoms drooping in their wedding urns,an empty flag of wedding veil wafts outward and then turnsto fall from spinning fan blades where it has been tossed—all its beauty shredded, its inspiration lost.Her hopes and dreams now fatuous, their ending is now lorewritten in tattered satin and petals on the floor.

It bothers me, I must confess. What happens to a wedding dress after it’s had its opening day? Is it simply packed away? If so, you’d think once time has passed they’d finally reappear at last in church bazaar or resale store or other places where things of yore emerge from attic, basement, closet or other area of deposit.(In whatever dark place they’ve all lain, thinking they’ll be used again.)

There should be rooms filled with selections of these nuptial confections. Warehouses stuffed full of them, varied in neckline, cut and hem. Why do we not see huge barrages of wedding gowns sold from garages along with strollers and kiddie toys cast off by grown up girls and boys? Surely every aging bride has a wedding dress inside a trunk or closet—way up high. What happens when their wearers die?

Garments of satin or nylon net— what could be the etiquette that guides a family in such matters? If the gown is not in tatters and worn away by age and mold, surely it would be resold. If so, where are the warehouses where gowns bereft of brides and spouses lie stockpiled awaiting chances for other wedding vows and dances? Where is the wedding gown museum where we might journey to go to see ’em?

I’ll now chance being thought abrupt, unsentimental, cold, corrupt by saying what I have to say. Do families throw these gowns away? Buried under hills of trash is there a wedding veil or sash? Satin bodices and trains diminished by decades of rains? Do gowns once virginally snowy, and spectacularly showy now lie buried like their dreams, slowly decaying at the seams?

These images, you might guess, seem calculated to depress. Who wants these pictures in her head as her wedding vows are said? This poem is meant for crones like me, bent of back and stiff of knee, who’ve run out of memories to ponder and so must journey over yonder to the macabre side of pondering for their mental wandering. That said, past brides, will you confess what happened to your wedding dress?